In John Updike’s “A&P,” the narrator, Sammy, makes a sudden decision he would never forget about. Sammy is a nineteen-year-old boy who works as a checkout clerk at an A&P grocery store. Sammy does not find his job interesting, he has been search for a chance to change, and on this Thursday he finally finds a chance. Although his decision will bring consequences, he is sure of what he decides. On this slow Thursday afternoon, Sammy is doing his regular job of checking out customers, until three girls walk in to A&P wearing “nothing but bathing suits.” He is completely distracted by the girls, especially “the one in the plaid green two-piece,” because he accidentally rings up a customer’s item twice. As he waits for customers to check out, …show more content…
He refers to the customers as “sheep,” which is a metaphor comparing the customers to people who follow what everyone is doing. He mentions that even if an explosion were to occur, people would keep on going and “checking oatmeal off their lists.” This bothers him because everyone is stuck in a routine and doing the same acts over and over. Sammy sees a different aspect in the girls that makes them stand out from all the “sheep,” which he admires. After the girls find the “Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream,” they walk over to Sammy's station to check out. Before Sammy could ring their item up, out comes the manager, Lengel, and immediately points out the girls for wearing bathing suits. Lengel mentions how “this isn't the beach,” and that girls need to be “decently dressed” in this store. The girls are embarrassed and as Sammy finishes up their sale, he tells Lengel he quits, hoping that the girls will stop and watch him. Sammy’s decision to quit was sudden, but the reader can infer that it is an action he has wanted to take, but had not had the chance to take, until now. Sammy was disturbed by the fact that Lengel had to point out the girls and embarrass them. Although the girls had already left, Sammy had to go through with his decision, and this was his chance to make the step towards
The first line of the story, “A&P, by John Updike, “In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits”; (230) sets the tone for the rest of the story. The rest of the story is a description of how the main character Sammy, views not only the three girls in the bathing suits , but the rest of the women that are portrayed in the story. The main character of the story is a young guy, in the early 60s, who is working at a grocery store when these three young ladies walk in. He describes how they were scantily dressed and walking around the store, and the reactions of the others in the store, including himself, his co-workers, his manager and other customers. This story is about how a 19-year-old guy in 1961 viewed and objectified the women, young and old, entirely.
This Story takes place in 1961, in a small New England town's A&P grocery store. Sammy, the narrator, is introduced as a grocery checker and an observer of the store's patrons. He finds himself fascinated by a particular group of girls. Just in from the beach and still in their bathing suits, they are a stark contrast, to the otherwise plain store interior. As they go about their errands, Sammy observes the reactions, of the other customers, to this trio of young women. He uses the word "Sheep" to describe the store regulars, as they seem to follow one and other, in their actions and reactions. The girls, however, appear to be unique in all aspects of their beings: walking, down the isles, against the grain: going barefoot and in swim suits, amongst the properly attired clientele. They are different and this is what catches and holds Sammy's attention. He sees them in such detail, that he can even see the queen of the bunch. Sammy observes their movements and gestures, up until the time of their checkout. At which point, they are confronted by the store manager and chastised for their unacceptable appearance. He believes their attire to be indecent. Sammy, feeling that the managerial display was unnecessary and unduly embarrassing for the girls, decides to quit his position as checker. Thought he knows that his decision may be hasty, he knows that he has to follow through and he can never go back. He leaves, with a clean conscious, but the burden of not knowing what the future has in store.
Walk three girls into a grocery store in bathing suits. They?re far enough away from the beach that it is customary for them to wear more clothes. Their actions are deliberate and exaggerated; they came into the store to buy one item, but that was not their purpose for being there. It?s easy to extract from the story that the girls stood out in many ways, money being an important one. Updike presents Sam the cashier as thinking,?Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them.?
Sammy is a 19-year-old boy conveying a cocky but cute male attitude. He describes three girls entering the A & P, setting the tone of the story. "In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. There was this chunky one, with the two piece-it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale...there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed righ...
The clients of Sammy’s workplace are described as having “Six children”(Updike 645) with “Veracious vein mapping their legs”(Updike 645) and ”haven 't seen the ocean in twenty years”(Updike 645). Through the details Sammy provides about the clients explains that Sammy is starved from the sight of a girl his age, and upon the first sight of a girl nearing his age, he is instantly attracted to her. The three girls in the store are Sammy’s rescue from the small tiresome town. The final point that proves Sammy’s heroic action are because of his lust for the girls is the theme of the whole short
The beginning of “A & P” starts with the main character, Sammy, at work when three girls in nothing but bathing suits walks in. According to Lawrence Dessner, the A & P check out counter showed Sammy a sample of insult and indignity of ordinary people (317). He may not have liked the people that shopped there, but he received insight of the real world. A woman that was currently at Sammy's counter was middle aged and brought Sammy no sympathy to the shoppers; he sometimes mention them as sheep. His names of the shoppers also include insight of Sammy's view of the ordinary shoppers; Sammy did not care much for others.
...s that Sammy is taking a stand and that Lengel cannot change his mind about quitting. When Sammy left the store, the girls where long gone. "His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he's just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter." This quote illustrates that Sammy knows that his parents will not like the fact that he quit, but he realizes that he has to take charge with his life, and make his own chooses without being afraid of what his parents would think. He is very happy that he had taken a stand, and he let no one change it.
First, the customers are compared to sheep which further pushes the message of Sammy’s boring life. Sammy reinforces this when he describes the customers, “All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word.” This quote compares the monotonous customers to sheep who are gawking at what’s going on but not commenting on anything. Second, the clothing symbolizes the difference between dull, the customers, and fresh, the girls. The typical A&P customer is “A few house-slaves in pin curlers” and dressed in “baggy gray pants,” while the girl have a “good tan” and “long white prima donna legs.” The girls not only appeal to Sammy’s male hormones but also to his yearning for something
On the other hand Sammy feels that Lengel was wrong for his actions and tells him that he is quitting. In this he is trying to take up for the girls.
Sammy is astounded by three young girls that walk into his store in their bathing suits. He follows their every move as they peruse over the cookies and other goods. The first thing this typical nineteen boy recognizes is the one girl’s “can”. But then he goes on to say that this girl is one that other girls seems to think has potential but never really makes it with the guys. One girl though especially catches his eye. He starts to call her “Queenie” because of the way she carries herself and that she seems to be the leader of the pack. Sammy does nothing but watch her every move as they parade about the store. He even daydreams about going into her house with her rich family at a cocktail party. He notices everything about her and thinks there was nothing cuter than the way she pulls the money out of her top. His immature infatuation with this girl is one of the reasons Sammy makes the hasty decision to quit in the end.
“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I’m in the third checkout slot, with my back to the door, so I don’t see them until they’re over by the bread” (Updike 430). In this first sentences John Updike’s “A&P,” develops a tone that embraces the characters and reflects the setting of the story. The three girls walking in the story represent the distraction that Sammy develops all through the story. This distraction motivates Sammy to daydream and have sexual imaginations about the girls’ in the bathing suits. Also, this distraction causes Sammy to visualize the girls personal life and physical appearance. As with the symbolic three girls; Updike uses this symbol to demonstrate the act of feminist protest. Moreover, Updike
The story unfolds when, “Lengel, the store’s manager” (2191) confronts the girls because they are dressed inappropriately. To Sammy, it is a moment of embarrassment and in defiance he quits his job. The student suggests that in quitting, “Sammy challenges social inequality and is a person who is trying to
We see this in the opening line of the story: "In walks three girls in nothing but bathing suits" (Updike 1026). Even the voice of Sammy is very "familiar and colloquial" (Uphaus 373). Much of the information that Sammy relays about the three girls is sexually descriptive in a nineteen-year-old boy’s way: "and a sweet broad looking can [rear] with those two crescents of white under it, where the sun never seems to hit" (Updike 1026). It is apparent that Sammy looks at the three girls who happen to walk into the A&P only as objects of lust or possibly boyish desire. Thus, on the surface it is easy to take this story as that of a boy who would do something like quit his job to "impress" these girls.
Sammy worked a typical boring job and what seemed to be in a typical small town. The only person in the store he really related to was Stokesie, which is the foil to Sammy, because Stokesie is married, has kids and eventually wanted to be manger one day. Something Sammy did not want to stick around and see. The customers in the store were all pretty much the same, in which Sammy did not show much emotion towards except he referred to them as “the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (Updike 261). It is easy to tell Sammy did not like his job, but it also seemed he had no other option, as if he was stuck in his small town and there was no way out. Then out of the blue he saw three girls wearing only their bathing suites walk in the store. Sammy noticed something different about them, like they were liberated from the conservative values of those times; they were part of a new generation. Especially Queenie, he referred to...
In the story A&P, we know as the story begins, Sammy is employed at A&P. He is ringing a older lady, who he describes as a "witch", groceries up. While Sammy is occupied, in walks three girls, wearing bathing suits, who catch Sammy's eye. Their attire is against the stores policy, which is not enforced, until the manager approaches them. Once the manager approaches them, we later read that Sammy quits his job. Following his first announce in him quitting, he says, "You didn't have to embarrass them" (152), which let us know, he felt the girls were embarrassed. Sammy's main point for quitting his job at A&P, in his and my opinion, is to be an "unsuspected hero" (152).